Accuser endures threats, business losses and harassment as Jackson Mahomes awaits trial

Aspen Vaughn says her life has been hell in the five months since she went public about the night Jackson Mahomes allegedly grabbed her by the neck and forcibly kissed her three times in her office at Aspens Restaurant and Lounge in south Overland Park.

Her place of business has been vandalized repeatedly, she and the restaurant manager claim. She’s been followed and received death threats since her story broke and went viral on March 3. That’s the night The Star posted its exclusive interview with her along with security cam video she provided showing her unwelcome encounter with the social influencer and younger brother of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

Vaughn, then 40, felt righteous in the moment. She called the then 22-year-old Mahomes’ behavior “disgusting,” and there needed to be consequences, but now says she wasn’t prepared for the fallout.

“So many things keep happening that’s never happened in my life before,” she said late last week.

Vaughn has been trashed on social media and even before Mahomes was charged in May with three counts of sexual battery for grabbing Vaughn and kissing her, she felt she was being shadowed.

Friends and acquaintances told her that one or more private detectives working for Mahomes’ lawyer have asked them questions about her background. Court records show that her prior sexual history was investigated and the subject of a legal motion and affidavit that Mahomes’ attorney filed under seal in June.

Brandan Davies, the attorney representing Mahomes, did not provide a direct response to The Star’s request for comment on the case.

Johnson County Judge Thomas Sutherland heard arguments on that filing from defense and prosecuting attorneys on Friday afternoon. The outcome of that hearing is not an open record.

For Vaughn, the attention and the stress has been overwhelming, she said during a phone interview in the same hour that hearing was being held behind closed doors. Until last week, she had not spoken to reporters or made public statements since that first interview and exchange of text messages with the The Star on March 2 and 3.

She agreed to Friday’s interview, she said, so she could clarify a story posted on the website of a local television station headlined “Woman at center of Jackson Mahomes case regrets police involvement.”

She said that story, which quoted her and her restaurant manager, had failed to convey their complicated feelings about the Mahomes case. The headline, she said, was incorrect.

“We never said that we regretted having police involvement, like those words never came of out our mouths,” Vaughn said.

She still believes Jackson Mahomes should be punished for what he is alleged to have done. But it is true that she wishes it would all go away because of all that’s happened since.

“I feel like definitely, since it’s occurred, my safety is definitely at risk,” she told The Star. “I’m feeling attacked.by people I’ve never met. Why do victims not come forward? It’s because this is how they get treated.”

Jackson Mahomes had been a regular at Aspens because one of his friends was Vaughn’s step daughter, who worked there. Vaughn had thought of him as a nice kid who had some issues. She posted a selfie with him on her Facebook page in December.

Sometimes Mahomes was well behaved when he came in. Sometimes he wasn’t. The Saturday night in question was one of the latter.

“He was definitely out of control,” Vaughn said. “I talked to my daughter afterwards and she’s like, ‘he doesn’t remember that night. Like, he was so messed up.’ ”

While at the restaurant, Mahomes allegedly pushed a waiter who had tried to retrieve his water bottle from the office where Mahomes and his friends were holed up in. He told his father about it over the phone later that night and the dad called the police.

But before Mahomes was told to leave the restaurant and police arrived, he asked to meet with Vaughn privately in her office to discuss something.

“And out of nowhere, he just grabbed me by the neck and like forcefully kissed me,” she said in that earlier interview with The Star, “and then proceeded to do it two more times, where the last time I was pushing him off.”

Police learned what happened and that night seized the surveillance video of the encounter and began to build a case against Mahomes. Getting what they felt were mixed signals from police investigators in those early days of the investigation, Vaughn and her lawyer feared there might be a cover-up and reached out to The Star to tell her story.

While Vaughn didn’t push for charges to be filed against Mahomes, she wasn’t against that happening, either. That hasn’t changed.

“Should there be consequences for his actions, yeah, absolutely, what he did was wrong,” she said Friday.

But at the same time, she believes she and her employees have suffered consequences they don’t deserve. Business at Aspens is down 75%, she said. She believes someone cut the connections to her restaurant’s central air conditioning unit and damaged the natural gas lines. Inside Aspens, someone pulled a fire alarm, causing water damage.

The police were not called on any of that because, she said, “because I don’t have a whole bunch of faith” in the system.

“It’s definitely hard,” Vaughn said. “I even told the DA (district attorney), can you drop the charges (against Mahomes). I don’t feel safe. I don’t want to be part of this. Like, I’m tired of being followed. Like, I can’t do this. I’m strong. But this is insane. You don’t understand, our day to day is insane.

“Like, just the harassment and people calling the restaurants, like death threats. And they said no. They’re going forward, whether I participate or not.”

County prosecutors issued a subpoena, she said, which compels her to testify at a preliminary hearing for Mahomes on Aug. 31.

Public information officer Melody Webb at the Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe’s office said the office had no comment on the case.